KEY POINTS:
When some teenagers announce they want to be a rock star, most parents advise them to get a 'proper' job and to leave thoughts of world tours, packed stadiums and wrecked hotel rooms to someone else.
However, playing an instrument is not restricted to headline acts and one-hit
wonders.
There is a whole range of positions open to people with a passion for music and who are prepared to put in the hard yards and pay their dues.
From session singers and musicians - who help other artists with their recordings - to the almost anonymous faces in an orchestra, most are trained people dedicated to their art. Nathan Haines is one of the country's top jazz musicians. He was classically trained, to grade eight, on the saxophone and flute, has made five albums so far and is working on his next one now.
"My father, Kevin Haines, started teaching me to read music and play the recorder when I was just four years old," says Haines. "When I got a little older I went to music lessons every Saturday - and I looked forward to them."
By the time he was 10 Haines had joined the North Shore Youth Orchestra, a tour of Australia followed and a love of jazz started to show itself.
"My dad bought me a Charlie Parker album and I would play along with it," he says. "I didn't know what I was doing, but I enjoyed it."
Haines received the Sony Young Jazz Musician of the Year Award when he was 18 and went to New York a year later in 1991 to study jazz. He says there are two paths into music.
"There is the classical path, that is a whole world unto itself - where you become a real craftsman of your instrument," he says. "If you are a soloist in an orchestra you may get to interpret pieces a little. But if you are the third violin, for example, then you have to be able to read music on sight and play anything that is put in front of you straight away, and play it to an international level."
Haines, who has played with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (NZSO), says the group has many international musicians among its ranks.
"There is a bit of a circuit you can go on. You can spend 40 years of your life playing with orchestras in different parts of the world and many people enjoy that."
But he says there are plenty of good musicians who can't read music that well.
"This is the alternative path to being classically trained," says Haines. "It is for those who enjoy improvising, who want to write their own material and be part of that live thing - who want to get out there and just start playing," says. "Some of the best people I know are not trained, but they practice at their craft."
He says people who enter the music industry as a performer, with the aim of developing a career, may come unstuck quite quickly.
"The only way you are going to last in music is if you have a real passion for it - you have to be willing to stick to your guns and do your thing - and not expect to make money," he says. "If you enter music with the idea of making money then you may as well make jingles or rubbish pop music because it's not going to happen otherwise.
"If you learn your craft and work with as many people as possible, learn to accept criticism, keep your head down and write [music], then eventually you will get somewhere. And if what you are doing is good you will be recognised and then you've got your career. It's important to work hard and not think about your career too much."
And it's important to get good people around you, says Haines. That may include a good agent and hiring a good lawyer, a good accountant and a good sound man (audio engineer).
Principal flute player with the NZSO, Bridget Douglas, says going abroad to study music is almost obligatory these days. She started out learning the flute at Saturday morning lessons - much like Haines.
"I turned up wanting to play the clarinet," says Douglas. "But they were all gone and so I got a flute instead. But it has worked out very well for me."
She was studying music in New York in 1997 when she heard the NZSO was looking for an associate principal flute player.
"I couldn't afford to fly back for the audition and so sent a performance in on tape," she says. "I was lucky and eventually got the position. Since then I have progressed up to principal flute player - it's the top flute job in the country."
But getting a top job as a musician can be difficult, she says. For example, the NZSO only employs three flute players and a vacancy in that section may come up just once every five or so years.
"It's easier if you are a violinist because there are 16 first violins and 14 second violins in the NZSO. But if you are a brass or wind player then it is extremely competitive. There are lots of talented people out there and when there's wind of a vacancy everyone goes for it."
Douglas says achieving grades in music doesn't mean anything and that it's all a bit old fashioned now.
"It's not a prerequisite of having a successful career," she says. "A lot of kids still do exams, a lot don't, and there are plenty of fine working musicians who aren't graded. It just means they haven't paid to sit the exams. And not all teachers get their students to sit them nowadays."
Unlike jazz musician Haines, who has the option to interpret and play around the music, working as a classical musician can be perceived as being restrictive. They will play exactly what's written down, in a style that's dictated by the composer and arranger, and under the instruction of a conductor. Where's the fun in that?
"It is almost automated, you are like a robot," says Douglas. "But in a lot of ways I get to put my stamp on the music I play. But of course a conductor can say, 'I don't like the way you're playing it' and ask you to play it their way. And that's part of the challenge. But there is a lot of me in what I play. Two musicians can play the same piece but it will sound subtly different."
Haines has some advice for musicians looking for their first record deal. Don't bother. He is self-funding the production of his next album, recording it in his own studio and paying for CD production and artwork himself. Traditionally, record companies pay for these things.
Haines says doing it himself will mean he'll get three times more money from each sale of his new CD than if it was produced under contract to a record company.
"Technology now puts the power into the hands of the musicians and you don't need a big record company any more," he says. "The stranglehold the record companies have on artists is dwindling."
Young people, he says, now need to know as much about the music industry as the music itself.
Where musicians work
* Armed Force's bands and orchestras
* Cruise ships / holiday venues
* Hotels
* Theatres
* Session work
* Orchestras
* Small ensembles
* Dance bands
* Clubs and restaurants
* Radio, television and motion picture industries
* Music teacher (if you cut it, teach it)
